Bringing Apple’s two-finger right-click to Windows

One of my favorite features on Apple’s notebooks is the set of multitouch gestures on its touchpads. I am particularly enamored of using two fingers to bring up a context or right-click menu.

I’m in the process of testing three Windows notebooks for a column that will run Tuesday. All three have nice, roomy touchpads that support multitouch. They all have two-finger scrolling, which lets you swipe up and down to scroll inside a window, but none has two-finger tapping, and it’s been driving me nuts. I’m so accustomed to that gesture – it’s much faster and more natural than using a right-mouse-button under a touchpad – that I do it reflexively on these notebooks, then end up irritated when nothing happens.

The touchpads all are made by Synaptics, the brand found in the majority of most Windows notebooks. The Synaptics driver lets you customize features and gestures in many ways, but two-finger-tapping isn’t among them.

I figured there had to be some kind of program that would enable this feature for Windows users of touchpads. I found a nifty little donationware program that does the job quite nicely.

TwoFingerScroll is a small program designed for use with Synaptics touchpads. As the name implies, it provides an alternate system for the two-finger scroll gesture, and adds two-finger tapping. The app doesn’t have an installer, which means it can be used on notebooks that have been locked-down by overly protective IT administrators.

Download the app, remove it from its Zip-file archive and place it in a folder. When you launch it, it appears nothing has happened, but if you look in Windows’ notification area, you’ll see an icon for TwoFingerScroll. Right-click it and choose Settings.

From here you can tell it to start when Windows does, then click the Tapping tab. Under the “Two fingers” drop-down, choose “Right button”.

Click OK and you’re set. Tapping with two fingers will now bring up the right-click menu.

As you can see, you can set up additional tap gestures to invoke other mouse buttons. For example, you can set the app to invoke a middle mouse button if you tap with two fingers, followed by one finger.

I also prefer TwoFingerScroll’s own scrolling to that of Synaptics’ driver, which I find to be choppy. The little apps’ version of scrolling is much smoother, and does away with the distracting indicator that Synaptics’s software puts on the screen while the gesture is active. There are different scroll settings to try if some applications balk at the app’s way of doing things. (Tip: Turn off two-finger scrolling in the Synaptics driver if you enable the app’s version of the feature.)

A caveat: There’s a list of known issues you should examine before downloading this app. I haven’t had any problems on the Dell XPS 14z notebook I’m testing, but obviously, your experience may not be the same. Also, the app was last updated in Feb. 2009. Fortunately, since there’s no installer, if you have problems you can just drop the executable in the Recycle Bin.

But I bet you don’t. This is a handy little app, and one that will make your use of a Windows touchpad much more pleasant.